Hold Me Tight: Your Guide to the Most Successful Approach to Building Loving Relationships

This is an important book that teaches couples how to be attentive in a meaningful way to each others feelings about their relationship. These feelings arise from a partner's emotional hardwired perspective on attachment. Attachment styles include the anxious, the avoidant and the secure. For the first two, insecurities about attachment translate into feelings that are interpreted as a literal threat to life. This is why so many people feel so incredibly bad when they are rejected or feel that their relationship is threatened. We are hardwired this way by nature and evolution, as isolation meant death at the beginnings of humanity. When couples fight, they tend to do so at the level of relatively unimportant issues but with an underlying feeling of threat to life. This is why seemingly minor disagreements can escalate into major arguments. Couples also tend to fight in a pattern where on attacks and the other becomes unavailable. This is a recipe for a vicious cycle. The key is to identify when this cycle is manifesting itself, recognize it as such and then address the underlying emotional needs. Partners need to express what they are specifically feeling and what triggers that feeling. Ideally both partners can share and develop a deeper understanding of each others basic attachment survival needs. This honest and open process leads to stronger bonds of love.

I have recommended this book to several people now. It's a game changer. This book is based off of Emotionally Focused Therapy which is a relatively new, but highly effective method used in marriage counseling. I would combine this book with one of John Gottman's books for the best results or at least the broadest use of knowledge in the field. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Gottman are the world's leading experts in love and making relationships work, and it's little wonder why when studies show that their methods work. When you are upset the last thing on your mind is making sure you are fighting fairly and communicating properly. My boyfriend and I started reading this when things were starting to get rocky and it has helped bring us closer together. It is all about people's bids for affection, reassurance, cycles we get stuck in, and how to recognize cues to help break that cycle. It gives you different scenarios of people with real situations, step by step instructions, and then a follow up example of what things should look like and also examples of how things should not look. I have studied psychology and so this information simply excites my soul on its own, but I think the real world application makes this beneficial for everyone. This does not replace a marriage therapist, but should be used as a supplement for a struggling relationship or as a way to bring back the connection of a stale one.

Sue Johnson is an icon in the field for her work with couples and the creation of this model for therapy with couples. My dissertation was on attachment theory and romantic relationships and Sue Johnson has taken that research that’s been done in the field and been able to apply it to create a practical way of helping couples communicate and get their romantic attachment needs met. She was brilliant and her work which is captured in this book has been profound and instrumental for the field of psychology and marriage! Well done Sue Johnson (RIP).

This book made great sense to me. It was recommended by a psychologist who said it had helped a number of her clients. I can see why. It is easy to read, explains clearly how couples get into various "dances" (sequences of downward spiralling arguments) and some reasonable ways of recognizing and addressing those patterns. It does not contain those trite and often embarrassing catchphrases of many relationship self help books and so should be more palatable for men whose female partners would like them to engage more. As a woman, I thought it described relationship frustration extremely well and gave a fresh approach to an age old dilemma with sensible scenarios for progressive change for both men and women. Having said that, I'm still waiting for my partner to comment so maybe interest in such books is still anchored in the female gene.

We'd become distant, me avoiding conflict, her pressing me for what I've been thinking. Both of us wanting the same thing, to know that each other were still going to be there tomorrow. Without Dr. Johnson's book we would have no common ground, no safe place to go to to understand that we are trying to protect our love for each other. This book is groundbreaking, profound, and understated in the world of relationship-self-help. It goes well beyond the Men Mars/Women Venus books, distilling the core needs of a couple to one simple thing: attachment. Where other books fall short, Dr. Johnson delivers. She not only identifies the 7 conversations or arguments that couples have, but she also gives you ways to create a 'safe word conversation' helps you 'see the dance' for what it is, and most importantly gives you the toolset to reframe the conversation in a balanced reset environment. We all want 3 things from our partner: To know they hear us, to know they understand us, and to know that they will be there for us. This book is huge. Read it to your partner. Practice the homework. Share it with couples who need help.

I an in couples therapy and this is the main resource for between sessions. I have seen me and my partner all throughout this book and it's been very helpful to see the patterns from the outside with space to identify them and look at what it is that each one of us really needs. This perspective helps us look at and put our attachment issues in the middle instead of each other taking turns being banged around in the boxing ring. There isn't enough time in our therapy sessions for her to teach all of this AND help us slow down when we are highly activated together in sessions. This is a must have for anyone looking at their relationship whether you choose to stay in it or not.

Excellent book for couples who find themselves having some of the same arguments over and over. Helps you see through the topics of the arguments to the deeper dynamic at play. The author is very highly credentialed and knows her stuff! The way the book is laid out is great, gives you some background on the theory and then walks you through specific conversations you can have to better understand each other and the way you both may be unintentionally playing into a dysfunctional and frustrating dynamic. Very user-friendly. My boyfriend and I are dealing with conflict so much more peacefully now even only after having read the first third of the book!

I'm a very "open" person who likes to conquer one battle and have it understood between the two of us before moving on but you have two in a relationship and was looking more of what could be said in order to get the male partner to see your sincerity and humility towards an intense disagreement. The book did have some high points which I did highlight. I do intend, in time, to go over those highlights with my boyfriend of 4 years. Was married for 39 and tried all my avenues before getting a divorce. Thank you for the book. Ellen T.

Great book

Simply the best book I've read about relationships. Based on John Bowlby's masterful work on attachment needs, the origin of attachment style theory and the related quizzes you find on the internet these days. This is takes the application of attachment out of the descriptive realm of styles and natural tendencies, to life application of dealing with attachment needs in a real here and now relationship with someone you love and who loves you in return. I love the book!

The book is excellent for relationships, mainly for partners, but can be applied to family and friends. The book apart from teaching the concept of conflict management, helps to bring the message home with examples with couples who have gone through the same issues. I found the book very helpful indeed!

Good one

Amazing model for relationships. My husband and I argued for years, then he left me. We did counseling but it didn’t work. I’ve read literally hundreds of books and articles, looking for ways to understand and sort problems in relationships. Nothing felt like it really made sense, and the counseling didn’t work. Now I know why. I just wish I’d discovered this book sooner. My husband and I had the same negative dynamics outlined in this book. The great insight it presents is to understand how those dynamics are driven by a primal need to feel loved and restore an intimate connection with a loved one. With one person pushing desperately for connection but in a way that comes across as critical and angry, and the other becoming fearful and hopeless and withdrawing. And no connection is made, so the cycle gets worse and worse. It’s not about bad behavior in the part of one or other person. It’s about connecting at an emotional level to understand each other and restore the attachment bond. All the books and articles I read talked about behaviors and dynamics, but not the underlying drivers and needs. I recognized Gottman’s 4 Horseman model, but the remedies are about changing behavior and not establishing connection. The counselor told me I should be independent and self-sufficient, aim for practical objectives on a tick list, and put my feelings to the side as they were getting in the way of practical goals. Which was the opposite of what I wanted. In contrast, EFT aims to reestablish the emotional bonding connection, which automatically fixes painful behavior dynamics driven by loss of connection, and gives a secure bond from which practical issues can be resolved. I wish I’d know about it, things might be so different.